


Stand

by Camolot



Category: Kung Fu Panda (Movies)
Genre: Complete
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:26:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23050156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Camolot/pseuds/Camolot
Summary: Lord Shen stands amongst the wreckage of his ambition, and decides to rise one last time.A sort of study of Shen's last moments, from his perspective, based on my own interpretations of his character.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	Stand

The stench of gunpowder and flame hung heavy in the air, the creaking of wood and rigging intermixing with the cries of wolves trying to organize themselves amongst the chaos. The smell of brine that had filled the bay only so many minutes before was drowned entirely in the reek of destruction.

Lord Shen, last of his name, once heir to Gongmen City, stared up at the remains of his flagship’s cannon in dismay, bewilderment, despair, the edges of its exploded barrel glowing with heat that he could feel even from here. He coughed soot from his lungs, feathers stained with ash and littered with chips of wood and metal. Ropes, all that was left holding the main cannon up, creaked ominously around him.

His head shook, ringing with the firing and quick destruction of cannon after cannon, culminating in the wreckage that lay before him where he was prone on the singed boards. Slowly, the effort coming from some depth of his soul, he turned his gaze to the left. Something had to have survived. There must be some shard of his great work, his life’s ambition, a shred of the power that he’d built…

Another knife of despair, colder than iron, pierced his heart as he beheld the wreckage of each and every ship that had managed to make it to the water. Wolves leaped from the capsized or sinking vessels into the water, fleeing towards shore or any large enough piece of wood. Their cannons lay broken, ruined or simply gone beneath the gentle waves under the faint light of dawn.

He turned his head away, not wanting to look any longer. Not wanting to see all that he’d spent his entire existence for twenty years preparing burn and sink. Quietly, he spoke, to the presence he knew was there without even looking. There was no anger in what he said. If anything, he felt… empty, so empty, after years of rage and hatred pushing him and fueling him.

“How is it you…” he paused, taking a gasping breath into his starving lungs, bands of iron pain constricting his chest. Slowly, with all the energy he had, he turned his head towards his destined enemy. “How did you do it…?” He couldn’t turn all the way, in the end. Out of the corner of his vision, he saw the panda shrug awkwardly.

“Y-you know, you just keep your elbows up and your shoulders loose-”

Shen felt a flicker of his old rage, a dying spark in his heart that he latched onto with all he had left. Right here, at the end, his victory complete, the panda was mocking him. Taunting him, while everything he’d done and was burned around him at his hands.

“Not THAT.” he growled. It gave him just enough, just enough to turn, look at the one named Po, standing unharmed. “How did you find peace?” the word came out lower than he’d intended, as he suppressed another cough. It didn’t prevent something slick and wet from coming up and leaking from the side of his beak. “I-I took away your parents, everything… I-I scarred you for life…”

He didn’t understand, truly he didn’t. It was… he struggled internally to even find a comparison, to contrast what he felt against the events of his history. It was as if… he’d been stripped of the burning in his chest that drove him forwards, his ambition and anger, without which he would have folded in on himself like a puppet with his strings cut. What drove Po? How had he done this, when Shen had taken so much from him, deprived him of every source and drop of anything he could, burned his people to the ground in the crusade he’d been so proud of. Shen could have understood if his turmoil and hatred had driven him here, to do this to Shen, because it was what he’d done to the Master’s Council.

But… no. This figure, the Dragon Warrior, had instead calmed whatever storms Shen had caused- somehow. Somehow, he’d accepted that which Shen had used for fuel, calmed it within him, become a still pool of water even amongst the hurricane of light and sound and motion that had been every action Shen had ever taken towards him. The destruction of Po’s village, his people, his orphaning, Shen finally managing to break every Kung Fu master that had appeared to fight his fleet at the final hour, even the thunderous booms and searing heat of cannon shot after cannon shot. Somehow, he’d taken every disturbance from the largest tidal wave to the smallest ripple that Shen had ever caused, and he’d made them flow like a stream.

And it made him… angry. Angry enough to ignore how it hurt every time he tried to breathe. Angry enough to disregard the tiny splatter of red that appeared with each shuddering cough.

“See, that’s the thing, Shen… scars heal.” He said it low, like he was imparting some wisdom, but his words only made Shen’s face twitch in derision.

“No, they don’t.” Shen would know. Every movement reminded him of the scars that he carried underneath his feathers, the sacrifices of flesh and blood that he’d made for strength. “Wounds heal.”

“Oh, yeah- what do scars do…” Po had the sheer audacity to make an expression that was mockingly contemplative. “They fade, I guess?”

Every word only stoked the furnace inside him, dying sparks stuttering to life as a small flame that burned in time with the pain that filled his whole form.

“I don’t CARE what scars do.” Shen looked down, suddenly tired again, the mere lifting of his head taking strength from his internal fire. He gasped air, panting for each sweet smoke-filled breath, no matter how it hurt him to do so.

“You should, Shen. You gotta let go of that stuff from the past, because it just doesn’t matter.”

Doesn’t… Shen’s feathers pressed into the shattered wood, a snarl flickering across his face as he shook. That ‘stuff from the past’ that the idiot that had defeated his army spoke so lightly of was all that’d filled him, kept him going, kept him alive for twenty years- he’d been a shell tightly wrapped around his ambition, his shame, his wounded pride, his hatred and his rage. Take that away? Just let it go? He’d have rather drowned himself. He probably would have without it, after his banishment. Not even noticing Shen’s internal struggle, Po forged onward.

“The only thing that matters… is what you choose to be now.”

Despite everything, despite who was speaking the words, they clicked. Shen’s eyes widened as they slotted into whatever was left of him, and suddenly the world was crystal clear. Yes… yes, he supposed that only right now mattered, this moment in time on the deck of his destroyed flagship with the largest cannon he’d made, a symbol of his will and ambitions, hanging almost completely dismantled above them.

“You’re right…” the reply he made was breathy, without true strength behind the words, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter anymore. His muscles tensed as he gathered every last scrap of will he had left in his broken form, prepared to force himself up. “Then I choose…”

In a fraction of a second, he was on his feet “THIS!” Silver steel flashed in the morning sun, blades cutting air with the sound of slithering metal on metal as the feather-like daggers went to their full extension, clawing at Po’s throat.

He felt nothing when the Panda ducked away from that first strike, and the second, nothing but rage. Rage encompassed his entire being, a howling bonfire screaming defiance at the black and white champion before him, at the excruciating pain that lanced through him with each movement, at the piercing sensations inside of him that screamed of something being vitally wrong. Nothing mattered anymore, nothing but his choice, his final choice; to fight.

He sliced and slashed and jumped, the panda keeping up with him, dodging each attack with the finesse of training and skill- even if it was accompanied by sounds of surprise. Then, finally, finally, he scored a hit- a scratch, white fur falling from the panda’s face as the blades sheared right through the fur and scraped the skin underneath, enough to make Shen’s enemy recoil in surprise and retreat back a few steps, paw coming up to his face. A moment was all the former Lord took to weigh his options, and then the feather blades were whistling through the air directly at Po’s center of mass… or, at least, he’d tried to aim them. Slowly, the vision in one eye was going dark, and even through the rage, Shen felt a twinge of irritation.

Still, the hail achieved what he’d wanted. The panda kicked up a loose plank, using it as a shield and stepping back as he did so, leaving Shen just enough space to rush forward and to the side. The metal of his spear’s blade rang slightly as he pulled it from the ruined deck, the familiar wooden haft almost comforting in his feathers, slightly chilled even through his plumage… or perhaps that was him. It didn’t matter.

He slammed his spearblade back to the deck, bringing forth a shower of wood chips and the sound of vibrating metal, then swung wide- Po stepped back, dodging the strikes, the only resistance to Shen’s blade the ropes that stretched taught from above. Strike after strike, none of them landing, Shen’s customary flips and spins feeling a moment sluggish, his slashes and stabs slower than when he’d fought the masters what felt like years ago. He struggled against the weight of his weapon, which had seemed so light before, further ropes rebounding the spear in his grip more than they ever would have. 

The wood popped and snapped, but he had no mind for it. Wrath and rage guttered in his heart, his mind, his soul, flickering as he fed everything he had into the flames to keep them going just a moment longer… but despite every effort, the pain he felt in every tiny piece of his broken body only built, the fatigue in his limbs growing with each passing moment. His lungs burned and fluttered, trying to pull in whatever they could. Dark crept around the sides of his other eye, the first eye nearly entirely black now, making his strikes even more inaccurate, slicing through more ropes and taking pieces of deck with the blade.

Even so, he had enough for one last strike. A final blow. A complicated spin that took every inch of what he had left, a whirl of shining steel and his last answer to the Dragon Warrior of black and white. With the barest tingling of disappointment, he watched the round figure before him leap out of the range of his strike- and as Shen hit the deck hard, one final time, his knee buckled underneath him.

Metal creaked. Wood groaned. Ropes snapped. He turned, reflexes driving him hard enough that he thought he felt something snap within him as well, a sensation of piercing inside his chest as he was suddenly unable to pull in another breath, a lungful of air no matter how hot and smoky it was sounding like the finest ambrosia.

The cannon was coming down. Almost impassive, Shen watched as the monolith of iron from a thousand different smelted sources came down like the hammer of the master his cannon had first killed. Some part of him wondered if this was what Rhino’s enemies had felt like in their final moments, staring up at their death. 

He could try to dodge. He could dive to the left, to the right, back where Po had gone. Perhaps he could have tried to deflect the thing with his own strength, adding whatever he could to the effort…

But Shen was tired. So tired. Where there had been a raging, if slightly stuttering, bonfire before, there was naught but ash and a cold hearth. His rage felt like it had burned away whatever he’d had left in its final scream of defiance against the destiny he’d been foretold, the warrior that had used his weapons against him. And so, when he stared up at the spire of metal coming down on him, Lord Shen, last of his line, former heir of Gongmen City and aspiring Emperor of China, felt only tired.

He closed his eyes, waiting for his final rest to take him.

And then he felt nothing at all.


End file.
